Todd, Tim and Kellan Cook love Baseball, the Seattle Mariners and trekking around the country to visit stadiums and watch games. These are their stories. #FatherSonBaseball

The Cubs at Citizens Bank Park (4/11/08)

Remember Tim’s First MLB Anniversary game on September 12, 2007, we went with our friends Tim and Gabe? Well, on April 11, 2008, Tim and I met up with Tim and Gabe once again and headed down to Citizens Bank Park to see the Phillies take on the Chicago Cubs.

The boys were having a blast before we even reached the stadium:

Someone had given me four sweet tickets in Section 111, Row 23…

…which is down the first base line at Citizens Bank Park.

The seats were awesome. Here was the view…

…as Greg Dobbs grounded out to end the third inning.

The Cubs jumped out to an early lead when Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez hit back-to-back solo homeruns in the first inning.

We did lots of eating all night. First, Tim started off with some hard pretzels we brought from home…

…he even shared some with me!

Next, Tim moved on to some candy that Gabe had brought…

…I can’t really remember what it was. But that little guy loves candy!

Then, the funniest part of the night…

…Tim turned around, made friends with the 12’ish year old girl behind us, and then ate a bunch of her french fries.

While Tim was making friends with the french fry girl, I made friends with the guy sitting next to me. I had to chat with him and get him to let me try on his glove…

…once I noticed he was sporting a near mint condition Spalding Dwight Gooden signature model glove. The very same glove that I had from elementary school through high school. It is the last non-Rawlings glove I’ve ever owned. After I replaced it with a wonderful little black Rawlings, I surgically altered that Spalding glove. I made it into a Trap-Eze (although it didn’t turn out nearly as good as my Rawlings Randy Johnson RBG10B-turned-Trap-Eze. Unfortunately, I don’t have that mock-Trap-Eze anymore.

In the bottom of the 4th inning, the Phils were still losing 2-0 when Pat Burrell came to bat. I looked over at Tim and proclaimed, “Tim, its Pat Burrell. Maybe he’ll hit a homerun. He always hits a homerun for you.” Next pitch, two-run game tying homerun. A guy behind us leans forward, “You should bring him to games more often!”

Pat “The Bat” would go 2-4 on the night with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored.

Wait, there were more snacks…

…popcorn. I’ve always thought that is a hilarous picture of Tim.

It was still 2-2 when hard hitting pitcher Carlos Zambrano…

…grounded out to end the top of the fifth. And then the Phils would take the lead. In the bottom of the fifth, former Mariner Greg “The Dobbers” Dobbs hit a run scoring double to center field.

The Cubs tied it up again in the top of the sixth with a solo homerun by Alfonso Soriano. The Phils took the lead again (for good) in the bottom of the sixth on a double by Pat Burrell and a single by Carlos Ruiz. In fact, that would cap the scoring for the evening.

There was one other fun on-field event that I can’t remember when in the game it happened. As a huge Mariners fan, I love Sweet Lou Piniella. I was hoping that Lou would go crazy and get tossed out of this game so Tim could see the Master at work. It almost happened. Lou stormed the field at some point during the game, but, alas, cooler heads prevailed and he returned to the dugout before getting tossed. Still, it was great to see Lou doing his thing.

At this point in his life, it was difficult for Tim to stay seated for an entire game. (Well, actually, it still is today). At almost 2.5 years of age, Tim was much better at staying in the seats when accompanied by another kid. But still, he got antsy late in this game. So we took to the concourse for some exploring:

Tim was excited to find an unattended John Deere truck in the concourse out by the right field corner of the concourse.

No one was around to tell Tim not to pretend to drive the John Deere. He had a great time.

But he was really starting to get tired so the four of us headed out a little bit early. So, we missed Brad Lidge nailing down his second save of the season — back when Brad Lidge was unstoppable.

On the way out of the ballpark, Big Tim suggested that we stop by the LF foul corner and pick up some “Schmitters.” At this point in my life, I had never even heard of The Schmitter…

Don’t know The Schmitter? Here’s a little info I found about it online —

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